Blood Jade: Burmese Gemstones and the Beijing Games

Stop the Global Trade in Burmese Blood Jade
The authors of this report call on individuals – global consumers, visitors to China, Olympic spectators, and Olympic athletes – to boycott the sale of Burma’s blood jade. The Beijing Organizing Committee of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) and the government of the People’s Republic of China should take immediate action to curb the global trade in blood jade, beginning by ending their promotion of jade products from Burma.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
For the first time in history, Olympic medals will be made with a material other than gold, silver, and bronze – jade. While they are a constituent part of a grand effort to infuse Chinese culture into the Olympic movement’s legacy, the medals of the Beijing Games also symbolize China’s deep and complex relationship to neighboring Burma – and the brutal military regime that rules it.
Burmese jadeite is a global business predicated on human suffering and the absence of the rule of law, and is controlled with an iron grip by Burma’s military regime. The regime led by Senior General Than Shwe grew in notoriety in September 2007 when it violently suppressed peaceful protests led by Buddhist clergy in Burma. The regime’s status as an international pariah was further cemented when it obstructed humanitarian aid to 2.4 million people affected by Nargis, a class four cyclone that hit the Irrawaddy delta region on May 3, 2008, killing 150,000.
Burma’s regime has effectively consolidated military control over the entire gems industry, including jadeite, by eliminating small and independent companies from mining and forcing all sales to go through national auctions held by official government ministries in Rangoon. Gems are now Burma’s third largest export and provide the regime with an important source of foreign currency.

Much of this cash comes from China, which has recently seen a dramatic rise in demand for Burmese jadeite due to its overall economic growth. On March 27, 2007, the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) announced that the design for the medals of the Beijing Games included jade from China’s Qinghai province2. BOCOG has publicly stated that their officially licensed products are being made with Qinghai jade (or nephrite), not jadeite from Burma. However, many if not most of the jade products on the general market are from the abuse-ridden jadeite industry in Burma and profit Burma’s brutal military regime. The showcasing of jade on the world stage will further escalate the growth in demand3.

Jadeite production comes at significant costs to the human rights and environmental security of the people living in Kachin state. Land confiscation and forced relocation are commonplace and improper mining practices lead to frequent landslides, floods, and other environmental damage. Conditions in the mines are deplorable, with frequent accidents and base wages less than US$1 per day. An environment of impunity and violence has been created by the military regime and its corporate partners, who inflict beatings on and even kill locals who are caught collecting stones cast off as trash by the mining companies. Mining company bosses and local authorities are complicit in a thriving local trade in drugs, which – when coupled with a substantial sex industry – has led to a generalized HIV/AIDS epidemic that has spilled over the border into China.